PIC Unveils AI-Powered Pork Chop Studio for Meat Quality
PIC has introduced Pork Chop Studio, an advanced imaging and artificial intelligence technology designed to transform how pork quality data is collected and analyzed. The new system aims to eliminate human subjectivity in evaluating pork quality traits, delivering unprecedented precision, consistency, and efficiency to drive genetic progress.
Historically, the industry has relied on expert-trained evaluators to manually assign marbling scores to loin samples, a process that requires a specialized skillset and is prone to human variability. Additional manual measurements for pH, color, and tenderness are objective but highly time-consuming.
To address these challenges, PIC’s Digital Phenotyping Team developed Pork Chop Studio as a custom imaging station powered by computer vision and deep learning. The system utilizes a high-end camera with studio lighting to capture 4K images at the push of a button. These images reveal microscopic details, such as muscle fiber striations, that are difficult for the human eye to detect. The images are then processed by an AI neural network trained on a consensus of nearly 1,300 expert-scored loin images, allowing it to predict an expert-level marbling score with perfect consistency.
Beyond marbling, the technology is expanding to measure loin height, width, and circumference. PIC is also training the neural network to predict pH and color directly from the images, analyzing visual cues like surface moisture and reflectance. This eliminates the need for specialized labor and standalone tools like pH meters or colorimeters.
By improving the accuracy and consistency of data collected across different plant locations, PIC can feed real-time insights back into its selection index. This enables faster and more reliable genetic progress, ultimately aiming to optimize pork quality, increase global demand, and lay the groundwork for predicting consumer preferences before the meat is cooked.
“Meat quality, as a key driver of demand, continues to come up in industry conversations. The timing couldn’t be better to develop a tool that drives genetic progress in meat quality and optimizes pork on the dinner plate... With Pork Chop Studio, we’ve increased data accuracy, improved consistency across plant locations and maintained the real-time speed needed to feed data right back into our selection index. That enables faster, more reliable genetic progress.”
“PIC’s Applied Meat Science Team saw an opportunity with Pork Chop Studio to remove subjectivity, reduce variability and improve efficiency across the meat quality evaluation process. The neural network provides an expert-level score every time. If you gave the same loin image to a human scorer 10 minutes apart, you could easily get different results depending on mood, focus or fatigue.”
“Our commitment to meat quality really allows us to shape genetics in a way that benefits everyone – from producer to packer to consumer. If technology ultimately helps us select for better meat quality and encourages more pork consumption globally, that’s a win across the entire value chain.”
Key Highlights
- PIC launches Pork Chop Studio using AI and computer vision
- Replaces subjective human marbling scores with consistent AI evaluation
- Utilizes 4K imaging to reveal microscopic muscle fiber details
- AI neural network trained on nearly 1,300 expert-scored images
- Technology expanding to predict pH and color without specialized tools
- Increases data accuracy and consistency across plant locations
- Accelerates genetic progress to optimize the consumer eating experience
About PIC
PIC (Pig Improvement Company) is the global leader in swine genetics. The company provides genetically superior breeding stock to pig producers and supports them with technical services to help them realize their genetic potential.
PIC operates as a subsidiary of Genus, a UK-based company with a vision to pioneer animal genetic improvement to help nourish the world.
Source: Official press release issued by PIC.
